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Luntz Focus Group Swings to Romney

RUSH: Let's go to the audio sound bites. I mentioned at the top of the program the Frank Luntz focus group that Hannity had on Fox. This is funny. I got a text from my brother when Hannity promoted the Luntz focus group, David said, "Oh, oh, no, I hope Luntz doesn't have his usual group of liberals put together." And then when Luntz's group showed up and started talking, David said, "I gotta eat my words, this is a great group." Here it is. We've got three bites. Frank Luntz in Las Vegas last night. I think he's in Vegas. Yeah. I think at the Wynn Hotel in Vegas. And Luntz said, "Something remarkable happened tonight. Nevada has seen more campaign ads than any other state. How many of you voted for Barack Obama in 2008? A lot of people. How many of you are staying with Barack Obama in 2012? How many of you switched and are now supporting Mitt Romney in 2012? We had a change here."

All these people are raising their hands, showing they're supporting Romney. They thought Romney kicked butt in the debate. Remember, now, this is after all the analysts on Fox had talked about how Obama won on points. And I'm sitting scratching my head. I don't know what they saw. They did not see what I saw. Then we go to the real people here in the focus group and here's the first bite.

Undecided Male Voter 1: Forceful, compassionate, presidential.

Undecided Female Voter 1: Confident and realistic.

Undecided Male Voter 2: Presidential.

Undecided Female Voter 2: Presidential and enthusiastic.

Undecided Male Voter 3: Our next President.

Undecided Female Voter 3: Dynamo. Winner.

Undecided Male Voter 4: Steady and articulate.

RUSH: Those are people who are reacting to Frank Luntz asking for a word or phrase to describe Romney's performance last night. This is a group of undecided voters, many of them who voted for Obama in 2008. Here's another one.

Undecided voter: He's lied about everything. He lied to get elected in 2008. That's why I voted for him. I bought his bull. He's lied about everything and hasn't come through on anything, and he's been bullsh**ing (bleep) the public with the media buying it.

RUSH: Fox did not bleep it. We did. We had a guy in the Luntz focus group, "He lied about everything. He lied to get elected in 2008, and that's why I voted for him. I bought his bull, and he's lied about everything. He hasn't come through on anything and he's been bullsh**ing the public with the media buying it. He can't do that." This is a real guy. These were real people. These were not professional analysts scoring things on points. These were real people. And they saw it the way I saw it, and I know that that's the way you saw it. And Luntz ended up saying, "This is as significant as what we had in Denver ten days ago." This group really swung.

If you go look at the CBS insta-poll afterward, the first look at it looks like it's pretty much a draw. But then you get inside it, as you'll hear in the audio, and not good for Obama. CNN flash poll, afterwards, it's gonna be funny for you to hear. Wolf Blitzer's all excited when the original flash poll results are put up there. But then when they get into the internals, like who looked more like a leader, who looked more like a guy that could handle the economy, it was devastating for Obama. And Wolf Blitzer was noticeably upset. You could see he was on a big high when the first wave come in, and then they got deeper into the details and they got all depressed.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know, you listen to all these former Obama supporters that these guys are finding in the focus groups post-debate, they're now backing Romney. They're the ones that sound the angriest of all, people betrayed by Obama. And folks, there is more of that going on out there that the media is in no way catching.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We have the Frank Luntz focus group of undecided voters in Las Vegas last night after the debate. Many of them had voted for Obama in 2008. So here are these two bites back-to-back.

Undecided Male Voter 1: Forceful, compassionate, presidential.

Undecided Female Voter 1: Confident and realistic.

Undecided Male Voter 2: Presidential.

Undecided Female Voter 2: Presidential and enthusiastic.

Undecided Male Voter 3: Our next President.

Undecided Female Voter 3: Dynamo. Winner.

Undecided Male Voter 4: Steady and articulate.

Undecided Voter: He's lied about everything. He lied to get elected in 2008. That's why I voted for him. I bought his bull. He's lied about everything and hasn't come through on anything, and he's been bullsh**ing (bleep) the public with the media buying it.

RUSH: What I want to do here is make, again, a point I made in the first hour. I guess I do mean to harp on it. I was going to say, I don't mean to harp on it, but I am. I really don't understand the horse race aspect of scoring this debate last night and saying Obama won on points or Obama won on style. There's no way, folks. It simply isn't possible that Obama won this thing last night. In the first place, it's not a horse race with both guys starting in a vacuum at the starting line last night with nothing previously in mind to shape people's opinion.

Obama has two standards that he's going to be measured against. One is the previous debate performance and who he was in 2008. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is crucial here, in assessing his performance. In 2008, only four years ago, the reason Obama was voted for compared to what he's become, is such a deflation, it is such a huge come-down. Barack Obama is not messianic anymore. He is not the guy that's gonna lower the sea levels. He's not this empty canvas that people can make him anything they want. And people made him out to be superhuman, Mr. Perfection. He was the answer to every Obama voter's problems.

Well, here we are four years later and he hasn't solved any. He's only made things worse. That debate performance last night has to be measured against that, in terms of people who are gonna vote for Obama again. That's such a fall from lofty heights, grace, whatever; but he cannot rekindle the 2008 image that he and his media staff created. And that's what the people talking about "he won on points" don't get. This isn't taking place in a self-contained universe where the only reality is last night. There's a whole bunch of reality that preceded last night that has an impact on the way people view last night and particularly the way they view Obama.

No matter how he performs in these debates, he will never match the image that was created for him and about him in 2008. It's not possible, because what was created in 2008 was not real. It was pure fantasy. If I might add, this is what's so damn frustrating for me about 2008. Everybody was falling for a fantasy, a fantasy of their own creation. Whatever people wanted Obama to be, that's what he was. None of it was real. This is the real Obama. The guy who can't put two coherent sentences together without a teleprompter, without stuttering, pausing, rolling his eyes trying to figure out what comes next, because he goes into a debate with a big burden. He can't be honest.

Another burden. He can't promote what's happened. He can't sell what has happened the last four years. He's got an almost impossible burden here. He can't be the guy he was because that wasn't real. This is the real Obama. He can't measure up to what he was in 2008. All Romney's gotta do is show up like he did and recite over and over again Obama's record to him. That's all he's gotta do. Obama has no answer for it. And then something else that's happening out there, and this Luntz focus group is a microcosm of it. You listen to these former Obama supporters who are now backing Romney, they sound the angriest of all. This is one thing that I don't think I realized 'til last night watching this group.

One thing that we haven't factored in -- maybe you have -- but there's a lot of Obama voters who feel betrayed. There have to be. We saw the evidence of it last night. There have to be millions of people. You stop and think, people voted for Obama in 2008, they thought it meant something, they thought it was real, they thought there was going to be genuine improvement. They thought that he was gonna do whatever they felt was necessary. Nothing has improved. Those people, you heard 'em in the Luntz group, some of them no doubt are really feeling betrayed, and I think they are the angriest of all. And when you say, when I say, when you hear other people say, "There's something going on out there." When you see the Gallup poll now with Romney up six and over 50%, there's something going on out there. What is it? What it is, is these people.

A lot of Obama voters feel betrayed, feel like they were used, feel like they were lied to or their intelligence insulted or whatever. They voted for this guy because of all the hype and because of all the promises. Lower health care premiums matters to people. Health care is one of the biggest issues. It was driving people nuts. It still is. The cost of health care are outside most people's ability to afford. He came along and promised to make it affordable. He was gonna reduce premiums. He was gonna make it available to everybody. It hasn't happened.

The Hispanics, he was gonna make immigration legal for anybody wanting to come here. It hasn't happened. There is a huge unreported-on amount of anger and betrayal at Obama, and of course the media's not gonna seek it out. As far as the media's concerned, it doesn't exist. They don't even think this way. They can't conceive of people not appreciating, loving Obama, because they do, and they think they're like everybody else. And they think they have the ability to make everybody else think and see and view things the way they do. But I think there's a lot of this going on out there. I think there's a tremendous amount of betrayal, people that voted for Obama. And they're the ones the ones catching his lies now, 'cause believe me, they know he lied to 'em, and they're catching his lies now.

This Benghazi business, folks, if Obama won this debate, why all the talk today about Libya? Why all the talk today about how Obama gave a false answer? Why all the talk today about how Candy Crowley made a fool of herself, if Obama won this? He didn't, on points or any other way. And there's one more debate to go and it's a foreign policy debate. You think this is gonna come up, maybe, and get corrected the next time out? Think maybe Romney will win on points the next time out on this subject? So Romney just needs to keep doing what he's doing. Show up, expose Obama's actual record, and he did that four times last night, bam, bam, bam, bam, without one aspect of it being refuted. Because it can't be.

There are 23 million people out of work. The median family income is down $4,000. Health insurance premiums are up $2,500. One out of six million Americans are in poverty. The unemployment rate total is 15%. And on and on and on. Forty-seven million Americans are on food stamps. The national debt is $5 trillion higher than it was when Obama took office. The national deficit every year is over $1 trillion. Do you realize most of the people watching this debate laugh themselves silly when Obama portrays himself as a budget cutter, when he starts talking about getting the deficit under control?

Do you realize most sensible people who are not scoring this on points listen to this and say, "What?" (laughing) Romney nailed Obama to the wall on oil, natural gas, and coal. Obama loves to talk about how all this oil drilling is going on out there and all this natural gas. It isn't. It's happening on private lands where Obama can't shut it down. He has shut it down on public lands. It's indisputable. Obama lied. How come he wins on points? He lied and Romney called him on it.

And there's another one. This Arizona immigration law. That was a big one that he lied about last night. (interruption) What? What are you laughing at in there? (interruption) Oh. Snerdley says, "Well, they were lies, but they were his best answers." Okay, that proves it. You score Obama the winner on points.

"Well, great answer!"

"They were lies."

"Doesn't matter! They were solid. They looked good."

What does that prove? That what comes naturally is lying. What flows without effort is lying. Remembering the truth and then uttering the truth, that takes effort. This business about the Arizona immigration law. Obama said that Romney called the Arizona law "a model for the nation." That was a lie that Romney called him on. Obama: "But part of the Arizona law said that law enforcement officers could stop folks because they suspected maybe they look like they might be undocumented workers and check their papers."

The law actually says law enforcement could not do that!

Obama said Romney supports the Arizona law and the Arizona law lets people profile. It does not! He lied through his teeth, just as Eric Holder said he had not even read the law when he'd already sued Arizona over all of this. Obama probably hasn't read it, either. "It was a good lie." Who says it's a good lie? The media. (interruption) Okay, so, he lied good. He lied good. Okay. See, that is my point. Snerdley's shouting at me in the IFB.

"Rush, you're missing it! You're blowing it. Obama got away with those lies. He lied good. He made it believable." See, you're falling into the trap that a lie unrefuted is a point scored. No, not in a presidential campaign. The people of Arizona know he lied about it. Everybody involved in immigration issue knows he lied about it. He knows he lied about it and he's ultimately not gonna get away with the lie.